ROX is a fast, user friendly desktop which makes extensive use of drag-and-drop. The interface revolves around the file manager, or filer, following the traditional Unix view that 'everything is a file' rather than trying to hide the filesystem beneath start menus, wizards, or druids. The aim is to make a system that is well designed and clearly presented. The ROX style favors using several small programs together instead of creating all-in-one mega-applications.

Usage

File manager

Desktop environment

You need to run ROX before your window manager. Here is an example line, using Openbox as the WM:

rox -b Default -p default; exec openbox

Mounting with static mountpoints

Rox supports mounting and unmounting devices in /etc/fstab, simply by clicking on the mount directory. For instance, you can create a directory /mnt/cdrom, and set up an fstab entry like so:

/dev/sr0 /mnt/cdrom auto noauto,user,ro 0 0

Clicking on /mnt/cdrom will now automatically mount whatever data disk is in your first CD drive.

Mounting with pmount

Static mountpoints in fstab are obviously somewhat inflexible; mounting two USB sticks at once, for instance, would require fstab entries for both USB sticks. Fortunately, ROX lets you create custom right-click menu entries for files, including device nodes in /dev. Thus, you can use custom menu entries that invoke the pmount and pumount commands to mount and unmount drives.

To do this, install the pmount package, then open up /dev in ROX and right-click on a block device node (e.g. /dev/sr0). Enter the file menu and click on Customize Menu. A window will appear in which you can create files that will invoke the necessary commands. Create, and then make executable, the following files:

mount.sh

#!/bin/sh
pmount "$@"

umount.sh

#!/bin/sh
pumount "$@"

If you want your mount directories to use device labels or UUID use this mount script instead:

You will now be able to mount device nodes to appropriately named directories in /media, and unmount them as necessary, using the new menu entries. For convenience, you should probably also change the mount and unmount commands in ROX's configuration (under Action Windows) to pmount and pumount; this will let you unmount devices via the mount directory's right-click menu.